Manifest Destiny
by Bryony
Summary: The entire planet was telling them "No."


Disclaimer: _Gundam Wing_ is not mine. This story is not for profit; please do not sue.

A/N: Another character introspection piece. Am I capable of turning out anything with a plot anymore? (Written for the gw_dark challenge: Noin/technology.)

Manifest Destiny

by Bryony

Despite a life spent on Earth Noin was well-versed in the history of the space-colonies -- had spent much of her life, in fact, somewhat in love with the idea of them. She knew that two hundred years ago, when the first mad, brilliant pioneers began stretching science to achieve the practicalities of life in outer space, they had resurrected a term from an ancient nation's past: manifest destiny.

_It is mankind's destiny to live among the stars._

From beginnings riddled with failure, from financial scandals and budgets hugely overdrawn, to the price paid in blood by engineers and laborers during the colonies' construction and by civilians following their launch, humanity had indeed carved out a place for itself outside the safety of Earth's atmosphere.

Noin had spent her life seeing in the space colonies lessons about humanity's ability to overcome the worst in its nature and achieve its best. She had seen hope.

But Mars... Mars was different.

The whole planet was telling them _No_.

It was not that she failed to see the political sense of Relena's conception of the project -- on the contrary, a common goal large enough to unite the minds of the people was, she thought, admirable. A fresh start full of idealism, necessary.

But attempting to ground that start on a planet with warfare in its very name, with Fear and Dread looking down on the people from the sky -- where, indeed, the process of making a world fit for human habitation required a violence all too reminiscent of a battle, that was a cruel irony. Perhaps that was why Zechs chose it for his home.

"It's early days, Noin," he was fond of telling her. He could see she was depressed, perhaps felt guilty, responsible for her being here.

"I know," she would respond, obliged in turn to reassure him that her presence was her choice.

She tried to reassure herself by thinking of the colonies, the doubts and outrages and injustices so many must have suffered during their birth, simply forgotten by virtue of being in the past, erased by clever politicians and historians with agendas to sell. But she couldn't help but feel the differences, the differences that made her doubt.

When mankind first launched itself into outer space, it was building something out of nothing, a vacuum. It was not fighting against a planet that did not want to be tamed. It was the creation she admired, the destruction she deplored. _Terraformation_ reminded her of a more ancient, more sinister colonization, one that felt all too imperialistic and reeked like Romefeller.

All this and, God, they hadn't even landed yet. A permanent ground base was years in the future yet; for now the terraformation team remained space-bound, with the exception of frequent one- and two-man expeditions to the planet to monitor progress of the seeded atmosphere, the magnetization process at the poles, the great changes demanded of this angry planet with its solar radiation, its wild dust storms, its freezing winds.

Noin had been to Antarctica, and she had to wonder: If people had yet failed to conquer that final outpost of their own planet, how would they ever survive even the tamest tract of Martian soil? Humanity had become accustomed to beating all forms of life into submission, but Mars, like Antarctica, was dead. What kind of vanity was it to believe they could bring it to life? What kind of arrogance to claim it as their right?

When Noin took control of one of the mobile probes and saw barren red dirt stretching away from her in every direction, and when she regarded the dull dirt-colored sky, she felt her wrongness here more keenly than she ever did in space. And she knew, she knew that mankind's only destiny here was to lose.

-end-

_Fear and Dread, by the way, are the English translations of the names of Mars' two moons. In case that wasn't clear. :)_


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